This invention relates to a method and an apparatus for preparing a roundish, particle-coated food product and to a roundish, particle-coated food product.
A well-known method for preparing a food product, such as ice-cream bonbons, involves carefully shaping a piece of food material, such as ice-cream, followed by coating said piece, for instance with chocolate or another coating material.
In Ice Cream Field, December 1958, pages 21 and 69, and in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,036,533 and 3,029,750 a spherical ice-cream product is described, produced by moulding ice-cream into balls and coating these balls with particles, such as coconut particles.
GB No. 2 075 326 (Morinaga & Co. Ltd) describes the production of a spherical frozen confection by rotating hard particulate core material in a revolving pan, cooling this material below freezing temperature and adding an aqueous coating material, thereby obtaining a generally spherical product comprising a core of any shape provided with a thick coating layer.
These methods for producing roundish food products suffer from the disadvantage that they either require a pre-moulding step for producing the roundish core or result in a relatively thick coating.
Conijn in DE No. 1 813 516 describes the production of cylindrical or spherical croquettes by rolling a piece of breaded ragout material between relatively moving surfaces. This method is, however, time-consuming and requires the use of expensive equipment.